In Other News

• Japan’s National Printing Bureau has started producing new 10,000 yen banknotes, which are expected to enter circulation in the first half of 2024. A special ceremony was held to mark the start of production, attended by Finance Minister Aso Taro.

The new note features Shibusawa Eiichi, a famed industrialist in modern Japan. He is known as the ‘father of Japanese capitalism.’ The reverse side features the Tokyo Station building.

According to the Finance Minister, the banknote is the first to incorporate a new kind of hologram to make it difficult to counterfeit. From the images of the note, it would appear the hologram is a stereogram – in which the portrait appears to move three-dimensionally when rotated about a vertical axis, displaying the tell-tale motion parallax and stereopsis associated with stereograms. If this is the case, then it would indeed be the first banknote to feature the technology.

Production of the new 1,000 and 5,000 yen notes, also due for issue in 2024, is scheduled to begin later this year.

• The Central Bank of Uzbekistan has now put into circulation new 5,000 and 10,000 som banknotes. The themes of both, in common with the 2,000 and 20,000 soms issued in June, is the Silk Road, with depictions of archaeological sites and traditions.

• The National Bank of Ukraine has issued new commemorative 100 and 500 hryvnia banknotes to commemorate the 30th anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union. 30,000 of each have been printed, with the anniversary logo represented in OVI.

• The Central Bank of Eswatini has issued the version of its 50 emalangeni banknote with its new name, in place of Swaziland, on the front. The 100 and 200 emalangeni notes have already been updated with the new name; the 10 and 20 notes will presumably be updated too in due course.

• The Central Bank of the Dominican Republic has upgraded its 1,000 Dominican peso (RD$) with a 4mm wide RollingStar® thread, which matches the green-to-blue colour switching effects in the SPARK® Live (Sandune) feature. The marks for the visually impaired have also been enhanced.

A similar upgrade was adopted for the RD$2,000 last year.

• The Central Bank of Cuba has issued new versions of 200, 500 and 1,000 Cuban peso notes, in which the watermarks have been changed. In place of the image of Celia Sánchez, the Cuban revolutionary and close ally of Fidel Castro, the watermarks now match the different portraits on the front of each note.

They will gradually be introduced into circulation. The notes they replace will remain legal tender.

• Banque d’’Algérie is issuing a 100 dinar coin, which will eventually replace banknotes of the same denomination. It is the third in a new family of coins and notes to be issued honouring the heroes of the Liberation War, and is dedicated to the memory of the martyr Ali Amar, killed during that war.

Its introduction follows the new 2,000 dinar note and 200 dinar coin issued earlier this year.

• The Central Bank of São Tomé and Príncipe has issued new 5, 10 and 200 dobra banknotes, which it states are more durable and adaptable to the hot and humid climate of the archipelago and, in the case of the 200, more secure.

The current series was issued in 2017, celebrating wildlife endemic to the country. The two lowest denominations were printed on SAFEGUIARD® polymer, but the new versions have reverted to paper. Both follow the design of their polymer counterparts, but now incorporate De La Rue’s GEMINI™ feature.

The 200 dobra has been completely redesigned and is now predominantly blue. It features Enhanced GEMINI™ with microtext and a PUREIMAGE™ diffractive windowed thread.